Safer sex involves the correct use of a condom during sexual intercourse, and in those engaging in sex having an awareness of how the virus is spread so they may avoid or cater for the riskiest practises. Once learned, it is simplicity itself - and one day it could save YOUR life. For make no mistake about it: AIDS is still a death sentence, not an inconvenience. The marvels of medical science may be able to prolong that sentence remarkably these days, but believe me: it is rarely life as you would wish to know it.
Today, with gay pubs and clubs everywhere, our gay communities don't exist in the same sense they did in the 80s when AIDS became a deathly reality to us. Then, in a far less commercial time, whole groups of us could be found sitting around in people's houses practising how to open up a condom packet (DON'T use your teeth!) and correctly fit a condom on a candle - and very often after a few drinks on to the real thing! At frequently hilarious nights we practised this until we could all do it second nature - even when blind drunk - and that undoubtedly saved many of our lives, at the same time making a mockery of the predicted number of deaths by the turn of the century.
Before the 80s, the chances of meeting a condom being used in anal intercourse were pretty damn remote. Condoms were simply to prevent babies, and none of us seemed to be able to have them! Then, just like today, there were people who thought condoms would take all the "fun" out of having sex, and remove a lot of the "feeling" associated with the act. Well, actually they don't.
Many of us were pleased to discover we could have a lot more fun, and for a whole lot longer, by using condoms. No more was it the grope, a little bit of oral if you were lucky, all quickly followed by a: "Wham! Bam! Thank-you, man!" before an annoying cock scrub in a bathroom was called for - not always available! - should you want to continue (a bit more oral?) or go on to find another partner. Correctly using condoms allowed us to cleanly have fun all night, get around and have sex a great deal more, and nobody walking home afterwards was ever at risk of that once messy nightmare commonly known as a: "follow through". Anyone who has had their arse pumped all night long without condoms and not made it all the way home without leaking will know exactly what is meant here!
We soon found out safer sex was much more fun, and there were many benefits to it too. Yes, it was certainly different, but then no less pleasing, and now not only were we protected from the HIV / AIDS virus, we found that fewer of us were going down with "the clap" - the loose term for any sexually transmitted disease - necessitating a visit to our special clinics where, with the treatment, usually a period of abstinence was involved - sometimes from both sex and alcohol.
Along with all the freedom safer sex now gave us, we started to learn many more ways in which to please each other - after all, even the fittest of us has to take a rest occasionally to recharge. We began to explore frottage (masturbation by rubbing against another) and onanism (manual stimulation of the genital organs - yours or another's), and all kinds of strange toys now began appearing on the scene and in people's bedrooms to tease and satisfy. Suddenly gay sex had become a million times better and much more fun, its scope bound only by the limits of our imaginations.
It is not the purpose of this article to teach you the mechanics of safer sex, or how to correctly fit a condom - you can find out all about that here: http://www.aidsmap.com under "preventing hiv", or at countless other websites. No, this article is simply to assure you that safer sex is not only responsible behaviour, done properly it really and truly is much more fun. And I know, for I was putting it around long before we invented it - so don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise. Once it has been conquered and become a routine part of your life, you will never again have to wonder: did I get away with it last night? Or panic whenever someone you've been with suddenly disappears off the scene, or is rumoured to be ill.
Today few of those gay social groups still exist where safer sex could be learned in a series of memorable nights, but don't let that deter you. You can still learn how to do it correctly on your own, all the info is out there on the internet, or you can have unforgettable fun with a few close friends or your lover(s) as you learn together. It is worth that little bit of effort on your part to make sure you are doing it right. Remember: that condom won't protect you or your partner if you are using it incorrectly, or falling down on some of the other important issues. Get it right.
Learned and practiced correctly, you are likely to carry on having fun with safer sex throughout a very long and healthy lifetime. The odds are heavily stacked in your favour. The alternative might be to one day find you are lying in abject pain prematurely dying in some hospice bed whilst knowing your mates were at that very moment likely to be screaming their tits off on a dance floor somewhere, or sniffing their poppers and screwing away with some gorgeous chicken in an ecstatic euphoria. Of those two vastly different scenarios, I know which one sounds more like fun to me. It also sounded more like fun to someone I shall call Adrian here, a dearly missed close friend, who told me so about an hour before he died, still holding my hand.
I have many memories of Adrian, he was a loyal mate for years, but indelibly etched are just two special ones. The first, not long after I met this young Adonis, is the day we spent in Bournemouth. We went swimming and nude sunbathing in nearby Studland Bay, and had mind-blowing sex in the little dunes behind the beach. It was the only time we had sex with each other, so it can never be forgotten. The other memory is of that darkened room which had such an unsavoury smell to it in the hospice several years later where, now little more than a bag of bones, he tried to joke as painfully we spent his final hours together.
Many of his friends WERE at the disco that night, less than half-a-mile away, as I had the announcement made. They were all expecting the news at anytime, of course, but nonetheless were shocked to hear it. Maybe, just maybe, there weren't so many gorgeous chickens shagged in an ecstatic euphoria that night. Safely or unsafely.
The choice of whether or not to learn all about safer sex - and to ALWAYS insist on having it! - is yours and yours alone. Just be sure you make the right decision for you, not forgetting that whatever you do decide may have an effect on someone else's life too. There will be many people out there who will love you, and who would miss you should anything untoward happen to you, probably many more than you might at first believe. Attending twenty-two AIDS funerals has taught me that, so - do I know you? Because I don't want to do twenty-three. I just want fun.
Slogans: Bare-backing feeds furnaces. People with a brain keep it in a condom. A condom in him is a part meant.
About the Author
Article by Michael Knell. - A gay man, an author and columnist, and "out" to all for most of his lifetime. More info: http://www.astabgay.com and http://www.michaelknell.com
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